Exhibiton For Marking

Last Thursday we set up our Work for the examiners to Mark and here are the photo's.

I had my army men on the left and my Hydrangeas on the right creating a contrast. I had my electroformed Hydrangeas on the wall in safety boxes. The red boxes that the spare key usually goes in for emergancies. To get it out in an emergancy you had to break the glass.) These electroformed hydrangeas are precious and are metaphors for captured moments/ trying to capture memories to make them last, so I found it fitting to have them in these closed off little boxes and the only way to get to these delicate fragile flowers out of these rather heavy and industrial like boxes is to break the glass.

Float away ring

This ring is also a metaphor for the need to capture memories. It shows the feeling of drifting off whilst thinhking of special moments. It is a metaphor for the transient nature of life and the need to make special moments more tangible.

This piece has a special memory that it reminds me of. It was a night in Prague with my family,standing on the bridge looking across the river, watching red balloons with tea lights attached at the bottom of them floating up and away into the dark sky, slowly drifting until we colud not see them any longer. None of us had a camera so all we have left of the night is the memory between the four of us.

Art works

Based on the jewellery that I have made I created two pictures. Both rings in the pictures were metaphors for wanting to capture memories.

This ring captured in this way looks like a still life or a picture in a photo album. The flower which is organic or alive has been captured in a way that has tried to capture the life in it and almost "freeze" it.

Dis-armed soldiers

I decided to subvert my army men and make them a bit humourous by dis-arming them. I gave them a new outlook on life.

Each Army man has a title. The title's are almost like little inspirational sayings for "life"


Keep Memories


Let Love

Aim

Bloom

Find a Friend

Give a little

Live it up

Enjoy the ride

Protect yourself

Throw the line

The display for the Jewellery is art too exhibition

Lighting at the columbo Exhibition

Bright Burst

Bright Burst

These piece is a metaphor for a youthful expression of life and it's association with the freshness of spring indicating a colourful stage of life, full of possibilities, can be seen in the flowers that are in full bloom. the hydrangea flower is most colourful when coming into full bloom.. I am using the flower in the way in which Fontanna talks about the flower being a "universal symbol of youth and also vitality, but because of their impermanence they also connote fragility" (1993:104). The stage of life expressed in this neck piece is on that does not last for long and this ties into the transient aspect of my concept.

This technique is so very delicate and fragile that whilst it is being worn the wearer is constantly aware of protecting the neck piece as it is so very fragile, which speaks of the fragility of life and the way in which one needs to guard it and protect it.

This piece was in the Glamour Magazine SA for spring

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

anglo gold continued......

Using the three dimensional Hydrangea silver ring as a design start for this bold and sleek category for anglo Gold.

Anglo Gold

There have been many competitions and exhibitions that have been on and i have been adapting my work or adapting the brief to fit into my work.

The first one was anglo plat. Because of the 2 entries required (an accesory and a statement piece) I had to pick wisely the theme so that I could carry on using my hydrangeas in my entries as the hydrangeas are still the area that I am working on in my own work.

I chose dual purpose for a statement piece and I chose accessory for bold and sleek.

For dual purpose I developed on sopmething similar I have designed before but changed it and improved it. It is a neck piece that turns into a hand piece.

here was the process....

Started off with this idea but the flowers needed to wrap more around the hand- needed to be more of a "statement piece"

This was the start of the piece around the neck. Not bold enough!

So i added more layers to it and this fuller feel was more what I was trying to achieve.

This picture below was when I tried to cover the neck more with the links and flowers but I feel the flowers look spare and there is not enough shape to complement the neck line.

I have been enjoying this process of designing by making a prototype and putting it together, then adjusting it etc and taking photo's on ther body to see what it looks like.

soldiers continued

so my next plan has been to make these soldiers in a cold silicone mould so that the plastic of the soldier is not melted or distorted in the hot silicone mould. I put a sprue on the soldiers and mixed the silicone, followed the process and let it set for as day. I only cut open one of the moulds as the inside of it was still tacky so i left the others for monday. I was very pleased with the little wax soldier that came out after I injected

casting soldiers

So I have been thinking of and experimenting with ways to get my soldiers into wax so that they can be cast. The first option I tried was putting then straight onto a wax tree and investing them straight but in the back of my mind I did wonder whether or not the plastic would effect the silver cast soldiers because in second year when I cast my little people the residue of the plastic left an ugly texture on the cast. Unfortunately both casts of my soldiers ahd the plastic residue left on them and therefore have porosity. Not to worry tho< beacuse i will use them in the right context and the porosity will stand a purpose. But for now I need to create alot of soldiers without porosity- so it is off to the cold silicone molds I go!

Mooi Loop Exhibition

I have used Mooi Loop's tree as a reference to create my own tree's that show the seasons

Some of the treesI have made with lots of leaves some with just a few branches, some blowing in the wind with bent trunks....

Mooi Loop Exhibition

Carrying on with the theme of fragility and transience of life, I am looking into other metaphors that can portray this theme.

For the Mooi Loop Exhibition I want to create my own version of Vet Kat's tree drawings and I would like each tree to be a season. These tree's will be metaphors for the cycle of life and the changings of the seasons which shows transience.

hydrangea pendent

I created this pendent and wanted to get a feeling of lots of hydrangea elements forming a circle. Im not completely satisfied with this pendent. I feel that the feeling/ look of it from far is what I wanted to caputre but from close there are many things that i am not satisfied with! some of these things are: 1. The flowers look too bent up or "raw". There needs to be something common running through them, for example a texture or dome the shape of each flower. Chris suggested dome each flower and then ben the petals in their own direction. b) I am not sure about how the flowers are attached to the circle that makes up the pendent.

anyway... I do like the feel of the pendent from far and that is what I am looking for but now I just need to work out how to create that feeling but from close still have the piece looking just as good from far! I think I actually am more fond of the back of the pendent than the front.

I have made a little tube setting for a tiny purple amethyst stone to be sat in the middle of the one flower. I want to take this idea further with incorporating tiny gem stones into my work, similar to my water droplet idea where the little blue topaz cabs i bought and moonstone cabs become water droplets on the leaves and petals I create. Not sure if I showed any photo's of this idea. It was a long time ago so I will have to go find the photos and put them up if I have not put them up long ago.

Glamour May 2011- SA

I was so excited when I found a picture of my bracelet in the glamour magazine for this month. It reminds me about the comments I got form the viewers that interacted with my jewellery when I was at design indaba in march. Most people either said, "so delicate" or "pretty" and about 5 even said " hydrangea's". I also remember a few saying "so feminine". some times after you have worked with piece's of your own jewellery for a long time you not sure how to comment on it or what other people think it looks like, so i was interested to see people's responses.

I called myself my full name Michelle Robyn and left my surname out, but then I was not sure if I should have put my surname instead of full name. I came to the decision that I will stick with michelle Robyn and thank goodness for that because it is all on my business cards that i got printed before design indaba. Anyways was just thinking about it.....

Little cast hydrangeas

I cast these little hydrangeas and am really satisfied with the out come. you might not be able to see the detail from the photo but from up close the detail (the veins and other detail) is very clear. You have to back the flowers up with wax before you cast them!

My hydrangeas and army men met

there was a bit of tension...

I really like the shadows created by the hydrangeas as you can see in the picture above, I could do something with the shapes of that shadow!